Winchester'S escalating homelessness problem has sparked off calls for more affordable housing throughout the district.

The city council now has 54 people on its books officially categorised as homeless, compared to 42 during 1997-98.

The manager of the city's nightshelter, Tony Mundy, has also reported a rise in customers, as more people of all ages seek emergency accommodation.

Although the number of applications made to the council for help with housing has dropped from 320 to 171 over the past 12 months, the number of people receiv-ing advice has soared from 652 to 799.

Labour group leader Patrick Davies said home-lessness had become a wide-spread social problem, made worse by the "extraordinary" high cost of residential properties in Winchester.

"Over the years there has been a lot of new affordable housing provided, but not enough," he added.

"Unfortunately, a lot of public sector land has been sold off for residential use, but until now the provision of affordable homes was not made a condition of redevelopment.

"A classic case was the release of land at King's School for housing, where social accommodation could have been included.

"Homelessness is not an easy problem to solve, but I believe the priority is to make sure that any new housing development in Winchester includes afford-able homes," he stressed.

At present it is extremely difficult for families wish-ing to live in the district to find a property for less than £65,000. An average three-bedroom house costs around £100,000.

Latest figures show that 309 people have stayed at the nightshelter over the past year.

"It would be nice to say the homelessness problem is going away and that we don't need a nightshelter - but all the statistics show that the problem is still growing," said Mr Mundy.

"People of all ages come to us for all sorts of reasons. They have either had their home repossessed, or are homeless because of a marriage breakdown, or as a result of divorce." The shelter, at Jewry Street, is run with the help of dozens of volunteers.

"We have about 80 volunteers at the moment, but we are always looking for more," added Mr Munday.

Anyone wishing to help is asked to contact the shelter on 01962 862050.

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